India captain Virat Kohli on Monday backed the out-of-form Rishabh Pant. Although he has got a “lot of chances”, the team management is not ready to try someone else for that place just yet as a player can’t be singled out in a collective failure. Pant has been out of form for the past one year and has been scrutinised as well because of his inconsistency. He has scored 60 runs across four innings in the 0-2 Test series loss to New Zealand, which raised the debate whether it was fair to leave out a keeper of Wriddhiman Saha’s calibre and back the under-fire Pant.
“…we have given him (Pant) a lot of chances in the home season as well starting from Australia. Then he was not playing for a bit. In turn, he really worked hard on himself,” Kohli came to Pant’s defence after the series. You need to figure out when is the right time to give someone else a chance. If you push people too early, they can lose confidence,” he added.
“…collectively, we didn’t perform. I don’t believe in singling him out. We take the hit together as a group whether it’s the batting group or as a team.”
However, the captain was asked if Rishabh Pant has taken his place for granted but Kohli cleared the air, saying that the culture of this team doesn’t support all of these where anyone should think like this. Even the players are told to take their responsibilities and work hard to do well in the game but what happened in the game is totally different.
Virat Kohli like the head coach Ravi Shastri thought that Rishabh Pant can do well in overseas conditions as he worked really hard on his games in his off-season. On the back of his hard work, Pant got the chance to be back as the team management thought he could contribute lower down the order.
For India, Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara and Hanuma Vihari scored a half-century each in the first innings where they were bowled out for 242 on the back of 5-wicket haul from Kyle Jamieson. However, Mohammed Shami took a four-for, Jasprit Bumrah’s 3 and 2 for Jadeja restricted the Kiwis within 235 in the first innings.
However, a 4-for and a 3-for from Trent Boult and Tim Southee respectively dismantled India’s line up and they were bundled out within 124 in their second innings which was chased by the Kiwis with ease where Tom Latham and Tom Blundell both scored the fifties.
